is paying for alpha/beta "early access" type stuff a scam?

Only if you're dumb enough to fall for it.

How is it a scam?

You're fulling aware of what you are paying for exactly

If its something I know im going to buy anyway (like a Bohemia Interactive game for example) then ill pay for the early access. This way I get the game for cheaper and no one is forcing me to play it until its finished.

Some are, some aren't. I don't like alphas/betas that cost more than the final game would or is going to- buying the "privilege" to play a bug ridden, incomplete game early is stupid. However, a lot of them are the opposite and actually cost LESS if you invest a modest amount ($25-$40) into them before they come out at full or just below retail.

If you want to see early access done right, see Divinity: Original Sin. It was a super good deal to buy alpha/beta access (cost less than retail), you of course got a copy (or two) of the final game, you got lots of in game, or physical, goodies with it, you got to play a decent sized PORTION of the game early, as to not ruin the experience by playing the whole game before it's all finished, and the developers really listened to feedback and it shows in the current beta build. They used the money generated from their Kickstarter to finish (they ran out of money before they asked for crowd funding, so the game would have been delayed or possibly even canned) and vastly improve the game by adding more content, features, orchestrated music, improved graphics, more polish, etc.

And that's how it should work- donate money for early access, get a full copy of the game with some extras, get to play the alpha or beta to give feedback, have the developer listen to feedback and change the game accordingly, you play some more to give more feedback, developer listens to feedback, repeat until finished then get to be able to play the entire, final game.

But yes, there are the inevitable scams.

Depends on game . If you don't like what you see , then don't support it . Yes , it is that simple .

Some games used Early Access extremely well , like Lichdom : Battlemage . Its early access was launched this year and was used to balance stats of different magical spells . Now full commercial release is set for late august .

Its optional. The quality titles its worth it, like Elite and Star Citizen.

It's a scam. Think of it this way. 90% of all movies, books, games, paintings etc etc are all shit. Early Access attempts to sell you on the idea of entertainment rather than the actual finished product, that statistically will most likely suck ass. It's also a scam because instead of you waiting for a sale or price drop to buy suck ass game the prices remain inflated longer due to paid alpha etc etc.

It is what hermits do and they like it.. kickstarter, indie alpha/beta crap on steam etc

My friend you make an excellent point. It's kinda like Dragons Den except instead of entrepreneur savvy business men objectively and willingly able to say "**** off you ****" it's mostly teenager kids and people in their early 20's. who are quite easily duped and manipulated, young, un-mature minds.

Ofcourse Not, If gamers are this stupid then they deserve whatever they got coming.

If we appplied this kinda of thinking everywhere then evevrything would be a scam......

At what point are people gonna man up and take Personal Responsibility ?

Personal Responsbility ! I have to say it twice.

The same goes to hermits who blame console gamers for dumbing down their favourite game.

yes it is

No other media would DARE pull this crap.But then again gamers are suckers so i can see why they do it.

No, because they tell you up front that it is an alpha/beta and that the game is unfinished.

Unless of course they purposely mislead you on the timeline of the game or the features available during early access

@ShepardCommandr

I can't believe I actually agree with you......

Excuse me while I scrub the shame off my Skin......

Yup, people had to get that crappy game Crackdown to get access to the highly anticipated Halo 3 beta.

I got MoH (2010) because I wanted it, but also to get access to the Battlefield 3 beta... then they friggin open the beta up to everyone... bullshit.

The Crysis 2 beta probably did more harm than good. The actually game was awesome, but I remember the beta caused a lot of negative reaction, probably hurt the games potential. They should have done a SP demo with MP beta access tied in to help promote the game.

Scammers on the net are taking advantage of peoples anticipation for games to set up fake sites to give out beta access. Who knows what ends people are doing this. To get your email addresses and phish valuable information from you? To get people to give up their gaming account info so they can take it over and the credit card attached to it?

As for that $150, that takes the cake. At that price you should get a free copy of the game and some like awesome limited edition collectible.

Yes and no. There are people who abuse the system in...well... any system; be it games, movies, music, even healthcare. But you can't let cheaters put it down for everyone who is doing it right, because those people/developers do exist. If we were to allow the few that abuse the system to ruin it for the rest, a lot of great things may never see the light of day. And for that prospect alone I think it's worth having.

I think independent developing/crowd funding probably wasn't that popular before because there was no really good infrastructure to do it well. Now we have PayPal and Kickstarter and others to oversee projects/funds and manage them better, and safer, than ever before with Kickstarter even having a money back guarantee on some projects if they fail to meet their goal. That and times have changed.

Betas used to be mostly closed off to the masses and only a chosen few were selected to participate. I think developers have seen the folly of only having a *few* beta test their games and have decided to open them up to allow for more testing/feedback to gauge how their game is doing. Somewhere along the way, though, someone got the idea (and it's not all bad) to charge for beta access. At first it seems like a stupid idea. CHARGE people for what they used to PAY people to do. But in reality, if put to good use, it can really work. Additional money for small developers to fully finish, improve, and polish their games to their full potential is never bad. And if the developer actually listens to player feedback and makes changes and implements them well, the result may be a better game for everyone.

I do think everyone should be a bit wary of crowd funded games, especially if they are from an unknown and unproven developer. Chris Roberts (Star Citizen) and Larian Studios (Divinity Original Sin) are more tried and true so they have more credibility. But sometimes you just have to have a little faith and if the initial concept (or what has been produced so far) is compelling enough for you to take the plunge, I don't see anything wrong with that. If you have half a brain you know the risk, you know it might change, and you know it might turn out bad. But it was a gamble to begin with.

yes

in the case of elite thats a real gamble. you get access to the beta, the full game and any expansions that will come out....but what expansions? i have heard mutterings of an expansion involving landing on planets and being able to walk around or something but no really solid plans. these are also expansion packs that may never get made.

it would have been better if they had a reduced price beta offer (say 30 quid to access the beta and you get the full game when its released (assuming the full game will be 40)).

i wouldnt call it a scam. they state what your getting and how much you are paying clearly. but people need to be aware that there is an element of risk. it can all go horribly wrong and you may get nothing back for your money. there will be delays in delivery also so there is no point throwing a hissy fit when it happens.

im not against the crowd funding and early access thing in principal. without them games like pillars or eternity, elite and start citizen simply wouldnt get developed. publishers are not interested but, as has been demonstrated by these successful campaigns, elements of the market still are. just not to an extent where EA and co would get the finger out (only star citizen has generated enough money to make a publisher sit up and take notice). i would much rather see these games get made than not and if that means taking a small risk and putting a few bob down for pre order then fair enough.

maybe there should be a disclaimer clearly stating that there is a chance that it can all go horribly wrong and you may get nothing for your money when people are about to puchase the early access programs or using kickstarter and co.

@lamprey263

In my Country $150 is a Nintendo Wii plus 1 game. :)

I think thats more valuable than getting into a Beta even if you get the game afterwards.

It is indeed a totally unreasonable amount. $150 should at the very least though get you a copy of the game is what I was trying to say, and if it's a subscription game as I imagine it might be then maybe like a year's access post-launch.

It's not a scam in the least bit. All of the Early Access and Beta stuff I've seen clearly says that the game isn't finished yet and is going to have significant issues. If you take and interpret it as the game is completely done and in perfect working order well you're an idiot. You aren't getting scammed, you're just a fool with some mental disorder where you brain converts everything into the opposite of what it should. These things clearly say what they are and give the consumer to buy or not buy depending on what they think it's worth.

Gamers too often forget that you don't have to buy something if it sounds like it's a crappy deal or sucks. Nobody is forcing your hand.

My friend, as an older pc gamer, as mentioned, I spent many years helping developers develop games without dropping a cent. Many of us older pc gamers did. This is because (and this may be rather shocking to the newer pc gamers) you are helping them, to develop and sell a game.

In case you fellows missed that, to re-illiterate, you are helping them. You, are giving them, a service.

So, when this has been turned into a marketing gimmick, to give the impression of an early demo or somehow, you helping them is a privilege using the argument of "oh oh ohhhhhh ahhhhhh, eeee ahhhh oh, but they say it's not finished" "ohhhh ehhh ehhh ehh it's optional!!!!111!!" is what is commonly called "bullshit". It's (again shocking for new pc gamers) the principle.

Like someone selling blessed holy water, is it optional? Yes. So fucking what? It's god dammed water with a different fucking label.

Tap water.

lol quake noob

A scam is something that is dishonest, early access games are honest about what they are. They're only a scam if you're dumb enough not to know what you're getting yourself in for.

You don't buy an early access game expecting perfection or a full game.

At least with Star Citizen, Cloud Imperium is being transparent with the development of the game. And give many early access options (from $30 to hundreds).

Early access is a choice. Want to be a game tester and play an unfinished product? Go ahead. Want to wait for the final product but pay more for it? That's your choice.

It is, but on the other hand nobody force you to buy them.

...this

You may not like the practice or find it excessively greedy, but it's not a scam in any fashion.

Is paying $2 million for a car or paying $550 for a round of golf at Pebble Beach a scam?

I recently purchased The Forest to get into the first version of Alpha. I like the concept and knew it would be full of bugs. You currently cant even save in the game. But it was clearly laid out what stage the game was in before i bought it so i have no problem with it and look forward to helping it improve.

Id only say its a scam if the state of the game is not clearly/honestly stated before you purchase.

I almost always stay away from alpha/beta play anyhow. I certainly wouldn't pay for access, but I don't consider it a scam. If people will pay for it, good for the devs.

It's not a scam I do find that this trend is going to quickly turn on developers considering a great deal of them release their "Alpha versions" and just let consumers sit with little to no word on development or updates.

The best ones to do the early release model are they ones who are knuckled down to quick updates and constant community feedback, it makes you feel as if your investment is helping the development process, instead of just funding the next yatch outing for the developers to ignore the game for a few more months to maybe release a tidbit of news once every 4 months to slake interest.

As much as I want the game to be good, Dead State had a bad habbit of this and it was a kickstarter game. The updates come painfully slow and the developers are on their forums complaining about how hard it is to make the game rather than update the community, they are shy about releasing any details beyond that "Were working on it" and it goes months sometimes without hearing a word from the people.

The thing is they don't have to do it, far from it they don't need to speak to the players at all. But the consumers eventually will throw their hands up in the air and say screw it! Sure they may be out their "Beta cash" but people love to hate, and make sure that everyone knows that they hate something. Kickstarters would run to the highest hill and scream at how much they hate this developer for slacking off and consumers would more than likely listen considering how on the fence people are about kickstarter or early access projects.

This.

It might be; it might not be. It's not a universal yes or no.

People don't know how to read though, so they buy games not knowing what they're paying for, and you're supposed to feel sorry for them.

Maybe.

There's certainly potential for Early Access or, more possible, Kickstarter games to be a scam. Though what's more likely if anything that's crowd funded fails it will inevitably be called a scam.

Personally I've crowd funded one game (with a bit of luck I'll be playing an pre-alpha build sometime this week) and taken early access on two, both of which I'd be buying on release anyway. So I thought may as well help out with development costs and the price was the same as it will be on release. I haven't actually played either past the first 30 minutes, to mess about with character types.

Other than those I'm not a massive fan of the practice and it seems every indie dev with half an idea is jumping on the band wagon.

Personally, I only buy the final product on release date. Heck. I rarely even do preorders. The last game I preordered was Doom. I paid for one game a year in advance and got 3 boxed copies (of the final game) in the mail from id. I opened one, sold one for full prize, and stored away the last box unopened.

As for a/b early access....... So long as it's optional, I don't have a problem with it. I simply wait for the final release.

More like a marketing 'strategy'.

Can't tell if sarcasm, or if you were never a kid? Honestly, when did you grow u p?

aren't they abit more active now that they're on steam? Regardless of that they're taking a very long time on this game and i get the feeling they took a very long break in developing before they made the move to early access.

Five Elements of Fraud

1. A false statement of a material fact; and
2. Knowledge on the part of the defendant that the statement is untrue; and
3. Intent on the part of the defendant to deceive the alleged victim; and
4. Reasonable reliance by the alleged victim on the statement; and
5. Injury to the alleged victim as a result.

Whether the promotion for any game, early-access or otherwise, is fraudulent can be different on a case-by-case basis. It's notable that all 5 elements must be met at some point in order for a game to be considered as a scam, but Steam would usually offer refund and/or take down games (usually after devs ignore notices/requests to correct) even if the misinformation is stated by mistake without knowledge or intention.

I don't know how buggy "Elite: Dangerous" is in the beta, so I can't comment on whether there is any false statement or deception. However, all Early-Access titles on Steam would receive a giant banner warning the users that the game is not finished, will be buggy, or even non-functional. There is clearly no false statement, and certainly no intention to deceive (quite to the contrary). Now, if a buyer does not read the warning and simply click through everything, then it cannot be said that the buyer was reliant on any misstatement, or that the buyer's injury (financial loss) was the result of any misstatement. In such a case the buyer would simply be regarded as an idiot, and the world is not going to revolve itself around his idiocy.

Finally, some of these elements are objective, rather than subjective. For instance, although there has to be actual subjective reliance by the alleged victim, that reliance has to be objectively reasonable. For example, even if you subjectively believe that terms such as "early access", "beta", "buggy, may be non-functional" indicate "a functional game that's quite enjoyable", such an expectation would not be shared by a reasonable member of the general public. Further, it's also notable that "material fact" has to be about a "fact". Most video game advertising slogans and promotions contain a lot of opinions, and indeed it would be your fault if you take opinions as facts. Comparison: falsely stating that "voted 'most enjoyable game' in BlahBlah Magazine 2012 poll" would be a false fact, while stating that "'Most enjoyable game we have ever made' - Developer" may just be a opinion.

So it is objectively a scam. Case closed.

There is no such thing as "objectively a scam". A fraud contains both subjective and objective elements. You can't just ignore some elements and pin the rest.

Not really but I think it's just as bad as paying for DLC. Both are cancerous